


lonely crowds

by caandleknight



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Angst, F/M, Learning to love themselves, Romance, Touch-Starved, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:48:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25872382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caandleknight/pseuds/caandleknight
Summary: This boy saved her, and yet, he can't hold her. (She can't be held); or ;Kaz learning to love, and Inej learning to be loved.
Relationships: Kaz Brekker/Inej Ghafa
Comments: 44
Kudos: 168
Collections: SIX OF CROWS FICS





	1. Chapter 1

lonely crowds

.

_“And I’ll use you as a warning sign.”_

.

She can tell when he knows.

In the lamp lit room, she sees his shoulders shaking in a silent laugh. Inej doesn’t think she’s ever heard Kaz laugh, but that shoulder shake is unmistakable.

She perches herself on the rail of his fire escape. Her silence is so thorough, not even the birds startle away.

Then again, crows remember faces, he said, and she had fed these creatures many times. Inej places her fingers on the cool window sill, the condensation builds under her skin as she pushes it up. Kindled warmth floods out.

Ketterdam streets are cold, she has learned.

He doesn’t lift his gaze from the paper stacked in front of him, but he says, “the sea free of slavers, Wraith?”

Her nimble feet caress the floorboards. “Yes. Quite,” she says, tone dry, “thank you.” He glances at her, lifting a brow.

This is the first time he sees her, after giving her freedom back, (and a boat, and a port, and her _family_ ).

They do not touch, not once, but there is more than one way to care for someone.

..

_“That if you talk enough sense, then you’ll lose your mind.”_

_.._

She tries to see him at least once or twice a month.

Inej thinks of him when the wind changes in her sails, when her hair frizzes with the salty air. (She thinks of him a devastating amount, when she visits Nina.)

The fourth time she visits him, he walks in dirty. She was perched on his desk, though she knows there is a chair.

He is bloody, and muddy. His eyes are cold, and his hands are clad in gloves.

The first thing he does is try to hide them, uselessly, she is sure he knows. The second thing he does is freeze up. She is familiar with Kaz Brekker’s armour.

The moment, he seems on the verge of taking a step closer, his conscience—or maybe his soul—ricochetes, like Jesper’s shots off metal walls.

The third thing he does is drop the act, and that, she has no way to explain, but she can comfort him, with her words. She says:

“We all have comforts, Kaz, things we fall back on.” Walking passed the Menagerie has her seizing; a newspaper makes Wylan blue; Jesper becomes itchy when he sees a deck of cards; Nina and _parem_. “It’s all right, you owe me nothing.”

Kaz and people. “I owe you far too much.”

_You’ve paid any notion of a debt to me._ His heart is black in the oddest way. There are days when he does kind deeds no one else would think to, and Inej wonders if her Saints are ever wagering with his heart.

Then, there were days like this, where Ketterdam was demanding it.

..

_“I found love where it wasn’t supposed to be.”_

..

“How is that boy of yours?” Her father asks.

Together, they sit in a tree, on the thinnest branches. The sun is a cool purple and Inej knows not to look at it. Her mama whittles wood beneath them at the trunk. It was always Mama’s hobby. She was surprised to see how much she had improved.

Inej visits her parents through strategic schedules. They inform her of when and where they will be. Inej plans her slaver ambushes accordingly.

“He’s okay.” Her father is silent, then:

He turns. “Does he… treat you well?” Inej lifts a brow at him, and he reddens slightly. She hates how her parents walk on eggshells around her, but she loves it too, loves them. “He’s a nice boy. It’s just… handshakes are customary in Kerch, no?” She nods.

Inej remembers how Kaz has strained himself as he said hello to her papa.

She never told them of her struggles, or Kaz’s. She’s aware that they have a faint idea. They asked about her scarred over tattoo.

Her mama especially sees how she tenses, when walking by certain men—not men that she knows—but just those who are familiar. When one calls out to her, her glare trembles and withers.

Her father continues, “he seemed uncomfortable, and if he’s ever forced you to…” _kill people, dupe them, steal from them, “touch-_ him.”

Oh, Saints. “No, not at all.” She glances away from him. “He paid my indenture, gave me a boat, _brought you to me.”_

He saved her.

“Okay,” he says, “I was just checking, _meja_.”

Papa reaches across the branches to put a hand on her shoulder. She missed this most. The casual familiarity of contact with someone you love. She thinks of Kaz, and the way he can barely kiss her neck, hold her hand, (the way she can barely handle a kiss on the neck, the way his fingers tangle with hers.

_Little Lynx.)_

If anything, Kaz forces himself.

..

“ _Right in front of me.”_

_.._

On her next visit, she enters the crow club.

The place is a wooden, glowing fire, and a sweaty stench fills her nose. Many of her friends, maybe family, don’t notice her until she is at the tables. Kaz’s eyes meet hers immediately as she sits, unsurprised. Gloveless hands give way to meticulous shuffling.

He may be a barrel boss, but his hands are unparalleled.

Anika yells, “Wraith!” And an avalanche of kindness flows into her ears, along with leers and bets.

Once it settles, and everyone goes back to their games and dances, Roeder pushes a glass of scotch in front of her. He sits in the stool next to her, clearly interested in talking.

“I don’t want my job back,” Inej says, and he startles, before sheepishly nodding.

“Glad you’re okay ‘Nej,” he answers, and she picks up the cup in her tiny hand, tilting it toward him in thanks.

He leaves, red cushioned stool still imprinted with his presence.

“Lovely fan club, Wraith,” says Kaz.

The air here is different without Per Haskell, or even Jesper, wasting his life away at the tables. Is it horrible of her to miss someone who was ruining themselves?

She hardly gets a word in with Kaz that night, but his eyes are warmer than she remembers.

They used to be stale, bitter. They are a fresh pot of coffee now.

A couple hours into watching him work, Inej grows as sweaty as everyone else, those who scream and yelp. They throw their arms around each other, mugs of beer frothing.

A fight breaks out, and ends just as quick with the smack of a crow-headed cane.

The heat is overwhelming, but Inej hates being bare. Her shoulders are forever covered, lest she be a _temptress_ , as Tante Heleen liked to claim.

No one comes near her, and it’s entirely to do with Kaz’s glare, but if they were to step close or even touch her, their femur would be in two, and they’d be choking on the remnants. She can protect herself.

She stands, and her jacket comes off. She places it on her stool before sitting again. Kaz looks at her calculatingly.

He opens his mouth, and closes it, shuffling his deck.

“I’m getting another drink,” she says, “would you like one as well?” He shakes his head, rolling up his sleeves.

His forearms are bare.

Inej notes how the Crows don’t stare at his fingers. _This must be a common thing._ It makes her a little happy to see his efforts.

She has always been tiny and she pushes her way through the Dregs without touching a single person, weaving like water.

She stops at the bar and Specht meets her eyes. “What business?” She orders the same, and he pours her another, but before she takes it, he says, “you look beautiful tonight.” He grins.

Inej’s spine freezes. _Tempting little lynx. Why do you think they stole you? Easy, beautiful meat, provoking men with every step._

Her eyes go wide, and she nods. His grin falters. “Are you all right?” She nods again more harshly. Hesitating, Specht turns away.

She thinks she understands Kaz’s gloves. All she wants is to cocoon in her jacket.

When she gets back to his table, he notices immediately, doesn’t ask outright. He doesn’t ask at all, and she’s glad for it.

He isn’t wearing his gloves. She isn’t tempting _anyone_. People make their own choices.

She’s choosing to have fun.

Inej uncoils her hair, and it falls, dark and thick. It rests atop her shoulders. Kaz pauses, lifting his eyes to her as he wipes down the table.

This time when his mouth opens, he says, “you look beautiful.”

She hates that everything in her seizes. It’s _Kaz_. This isn’t something to fear, a compliment from the boy she’s always wanted to look at her.

Easy, beautiful meat, provoking men with every step.

The night goes on. Her jacket sits on her shoulders within the hour, and his gloves secure on him too.

Her hair stays down until closing. She helps clean up. He doesn’t.

“ _No one fears a man who stoops to their level,”_ Inej remembers him saying to her once.

He is gone, maybe waiting for her to meet him in his room.

She doesn’t. She jumps the roofs to Port 22, and then takes her ship out of Ketterdam.

_Why do you think they took you?_

..

On her next stay in Ketterdam, she doesn’t visit him. She goes to the Van Eck estate, and Jesper gives her a hug. Wylan too.

But: she stops off in Kaz’s room, when she knows he won’t be there. Inej leaves a carving of a crow, whittled by her mother’s soft hands.

And as she sails the sea, she wonders what he’s done with it.

..

_“Talk some sense to me.”_

_.._

He seems surprised to see her, when she does show up. Today, no gloves hide him. Today, no dirt mucks his pristine tie or button up.

He loosens the tie, hanging it on the back of the door.

“Hello, Kaz,” she says.

“Inej.”

He sets his cane against his desk, before sitting on his bed and pulling off his shoes.

“I haven’t visited in a while.” She wants to curl in on herself.

“I know,” and he meets her gaze.

His shirt buttons release, one by one. She looks at him, and sees a boy, tall and crooked and strong. Kaz doesn’t break a deal, never will. He paid her indenture. He would never revoke such a thing. Inej wonders, sometimes—just briefly—if this is all he wants from life.

The night goes slowly, one second ticking by three at a time.

The kerosene lantern flickers. He does his work at his desk while she feeds the crows.

She sees it then, a flower pot, weeded and centred with a shrub. A wooden crow sits in the soil, light and jagged against the rich brown.

She takes it into her hands. Without realizing it, Inej slips inside, and he is looking at her.

Her hands clench on the carving as she leans against the window sill.

His eyebrows are drawn, hand tight on a pen. His suspenders are pulled off his shoulders to hang from his sides. Kaz has always dressed like a Merch, demanding respect.

Finally, he sighs, a frustrated noise. “Did I overstep?” He drops his pen lightly and looks away from her.

Inej freezes. Winter no longer sucks the air out of Ketterdam, but it might as well have stayed.

“No,” she says, “you’ve done nothing wrong.”

“I’ve done many things that are wrong.” He gives her a tiny stare. _A barrel boss should be proud._ He plays the role. All the roles.

“As have I.”

“Forced sins that aren’t yours,” he presses, and she startles up her eyes. _Yes, they are. In my heart, they are._ “Don’t do that. I say you’re beautiful and you run off for five months.” She swallows, and shame courses through her.

“If I overstepped, I’m sorry,” he finishes, and turns back to the paper.

They are both so terrible with words. She wants him to understand. It wasn’t him. Never has it been _him_.

So she takes light, painless steps to his desk. Placing the crow before him softly, she says, because it’s all she can say, “Heleen called me beautiful, and tempting, and pretty.”

_The little lynx who deserved everything she got._

The ink spills. Like he said it never would again, it seeps into the pages as he grits his teeth.

He shifts his stack of papers but makes no effort to clean the spill. “You’re horribly ugly,” he says, and she barks a little pity laugh. “Even if I could stomach it, I wouldn’t touch you.”

They both know that’s not true. It’s the kindest lie she’s ever heard.

She wishes she could be confident like Nina, bat her eyes and pucker her lips. She has prayed to the saints for reprieve, to let her walk by the Menagerie or even a leering man without tensing.

Kaz seems to know how to settle her, without touch. 

“You said you’d have me without armour.” He lines up his pages with a knock on his desk, filing them away in his desk. “I can’t give that to you, not right now.”

She can’t seem to either. He says one final thing, “but I want to.”

Inej feels her soles anchor the hardwood, heavy like she’s never been. She reaches for the wooden crow, thumbing it between her.

He is in front of her then, cradling her fingers in his palm. He is tense, cool skin of white caressing her dark knuckles and breathing her air.

“I do too,” she says.

The seconds pass, one by one, and at the end of the night, she leaves.

..

_“And I’ll use you as a focal point,”_

_.._

On the next visit, she thinks he’s lost his chestplate.

“Stay.”

The night is dark, and muggy. It sticks to the bricks and onto her hands. She stares at him over the railing.

He is at his desk, and she is on his fire escape’s railing.

His position is open, in the way his cane is against the door. The tie is loose on his neck. His gloves are off and his suspenders are hanging from his hips.

Kaz’s hair is shaggy, sticking out and Inej thinks he looks boyishly attractive in a way Kaz Brekker shouldn’t.

“I won’t stay,” she says, heels digging into the columns of railing holding her up, “I will not-“ _waste my life trying to fix you._

She doesn’t get to finish her sentence, because he interrupts with, “I meant the night.” He swallows, and lifts his fingers to his tie. “Stay the night.”

The night.

Her silence is piercing, she can feel as it crawls out of her ribcage and into his.

He adds smoothly, “you don’t have to.”

She slides off the rail, and onto the grate of the fire escape. It makes no noise. He watches as she pulls the coil from her hair and sets her shoulders.

She takes her residence on his mattress, back to the wall, watching him. He watches her too.

For an hour or so, he continues to work, occasionally sighing or cracking a bone. Inej grows weary as the lantern dies. And she’s nearly asleep when she feels a weight on the mattress.

How it creaks.

Inej flinches, arms guarding her torso on instinct.

The weight is gone. Her eyes open to see him, dress shirt and tie gone, leaving the dark muscle tee he wears underneath and loose boxers.

Kaz’s eyes are hard on her. She tastes shame.

But as he turns away, she feels a crowded loneliness, like she’s in a Ravkan market. She needs directions home but she doesn’t speak the native tongue. And so, on impulse, slipping across the mattress, she snags his wrist. Inej is quick and terrifying in her silences.

He jerks away, nearly ripping her off the bed.

She knows not to touch him. In the dark, she scurries for purchase on the sheets. In the muggy, sad dark, she whispers, “stay?”

All they want is to touch each other.

He stays, and there is a foot between them, at least, and neither sleeps well. Inej asks herself over and over, _is this even worth it?_

She looks at the boy across from her, soaking in sweat and grimacing. _Is it worth it?_

Inej doesn’t know.

..

Her first night on The Wraith after she slept next to Kaz is worse, not a wink. The bed is cold, and she can’t rise from it. She’s tied to it by heavy shackles.

Inej has never been good at picking locks. He has, except ones his own creation, of course.

The next night is the same, but she does not lay in bed.

She mans the deck, taking Kerika’s shift—another victim of trafficking, curvy and gorgeous.

As she lets her damp hair down, the spray of the ocean cools her, and she wonders just briefly, if Kaz thought she was beautiful at all, when she lay down next to him. The thought makes her warm, in a lovely way.

A scary one too.

..

_“So I don’t lose sight of what I want.”_

_.._

Since they can’t seem to sleep, they talk.

They never ask if it’s worth it. Inej knows it shouldn’t be, but hearts and heads rarely agree.

In the dark, warm night, she slips into his room. Kaz scans her quickly, taking in her leather and knives and tight hair.

“Do you own sleep clothes, or do you enjoy sleeping like an armoury?” He quirks his lips up at her.

She doesn’t know how to answer. Her sleep clothes consist of underwear, a sheet to cover her, and the sway of the sea.

His eyebrows furrow. Then, he moves on.

He limps to his drawers and pulls out a shirt: a matching muscle tee to his. “Would you like this?”

She would like it very much, but she shakes her head. He sets it on his desk: if she changes her mind.

She doesn’t.

(But in the morning, she takes it, looking over at him. He slept. He rolls over now, eyes brown and blurry.

With a shirt in her hands, she leaves.)

..

His shirt brushes her kneecaps and sits too wide on her shoulders.

It smells like blood, crows, wolves and a hint of waffles. It smells like Kaz, after he spent time with their ragtag group (family).

She sleeps well, rocking with the boat.

..

(She wears the shirt next time, and she faces him on the small bed. He faces her. Their fingers verge on meeting, and then:

They touch, finger to finger, thumb on wrist. That’s how it starts, or maybe they are already in the middle.)

. .

.

.

.

_to be continued._

_Song: “I Found” by Amber Run_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Try a kiss.

. .

.

“ _And I’ve moved further than I thought I could.”_

_._

They start to explore each other, in the night.

It starts small, beside one another. The room is lit by the moon, crows’ umbra bouncing around the wall with the silhouette of a feather on the window sill. An eternal shadow puppet.

Trailing her fingers, Inej kisses him between the brows. He tries not to tense. Except, he does:

His eyes close softly in the night. The scratchy sheet tangles their naked feet, holding them close. Kaz’s breath is laboured, as though he ran a marathon.

She is a body’s width away, and he leans in.

Her bare shoulders are alight in the moon, not as bright as his skin. Just as warm. He kisses her shoulder, slow and small, lips almost shaking, like the hand of the bridlest, old woman.

Kaz is hesitant, soft and sad. He pulls away. His hand rests palm down between them, crushing the sheets in expected disappointment. Anger permeates his brow, a sad kind, one of reprimanded children and broken hearts.

Kaz Brekker’s anger is that of monsters: unrelentingly cruel. It’s reactionary, ever evolving. The kind of anger that yells eccentrically: to make you look, forcing its target to feel as though they are in control.

Then, he is composed.

Not here though, not now. Now, he is eighteen, hand clenching his sheets like his heart is oozing between the fingers.

“Is this it for you, Kaz?” she asks. Her fingers crawl out. They brush his hand. He stretches a pinky to her. “Boss of the barrel, picking up strays?”

His eyes flicker up and down.

“I don’t know.” His hand lifts. He breathes.

She takes a breath too, but it’s like someone is squeezing her throat. Maybe his grip wasn’t suffocating his heart.

His hand drops. Inej’s lungs expand, and absorb no air.

Kaz’s face becomes passive, handing lifting again. His sigh is trite, like a tired day. He is convincing himself of the normality.

This is okay. They are okay.

Brushing the dark hair from her cheek, he cups her chin. The hand is warm, scarred, and ragged. It is bare. There is an inch between them, but it might as well be a wall, thirty bricks thick. Heavy, heavy hardened clay. In the night, they try to dislodge one brick, leaning their combined weight into it. A brick is the size of her foot, but the weight of an elephant. They do not like moving.

They shifted one though.

..

“ _But I missed you more than I thought I would.”_

..

On her next visit, Inej assists him on a stakeout.

She knows he has Roeder for this kind of thing now, but her toe nudged the door of the Crow Club and he was already offering the Wraith an errand.

They are on a balcony in the financial district. The Mercher who owns the property is out of town. He’s a collector of sort, apparently.

A drizzle comes down on them, soaking her hair and making his clothes stick to his skin.

“Do your thing,” he says, mocking and encouraging.

Her hood flicks up. The shingles are awkward and broken beneath her toes. The rain feels more humid in the dark. It suffocates her teeth.

Inej slithers her way along the wall, memorizing information. After twenty minutes, she turns back.

Kaz is where she left him, cuffing his dress shirt. He lifts his gaze.

“What business?”

“Nothing new,” Inej says. “Rottler is maintaining the bargain.” Kaz hates being double-crossed. Inej knows it has something to do with Jordie, but she won’t ask today.

He stands, adjusting his tie.

She doesn’t know why it is, but he is nervous. Kaz is a language she had learned over the years, but ‘nervous’ was a phrase never used.

“My night is free,” he says. “Is yours?”

Oh. The grey sky seems a little warmer.

“It is.” A beat of silence and she nearly sighs. She asks instead of waiting on him. “Would you like to spend it with me?”

He takes great care in not answering too quickly, and then he says, “all right.”

“All right,” she answers. It rains on the balcony.

..

She does not know what he wanted to do, so she leads them to the docks.

Port 22’s boards creak under Kaz’s steps as they make their way to ‘the Wraith’.

She scales the boat, snatching the rope ladder so Kaz can join her. The frayed cord is soggy as it _thunks_ to the dock.

A second later, Kaz emerges from the edge, pulling up with his grip on the trim of her vessel. It is a soulless boat.

It sways.

Barrels line to sides, filled with gunpowder. Ropes hang from the mast, and scratches line every surface. Cloth is strewn around, with knives, clothing, and seeds.

It’s worn. It’s home. It’s sanctity.

Inej lowers to her knees, gathering up the chaos. She piles the cloth, detangling the ropes. He helps, unafraid of how she might perceive his assistance.

When they are finished, Inej and Kaz settle next to one another on the stairs up to the quarter deck, shoulders brushing. They make idle conversation.

She likes their silences as much as their words.

The girls’ laughter can be heard up the canal, indicating their return. The night is dark, and the rain has finally cleared. Inej lit a few lanterns around main deck earlier.

“I should go,” Kaz says, standing, and wiping his bare hands on his pants.

“Or you could stay?”

She doesn’t stand, but she does look up at him. The creak of the dock is a warning.

He stays.

..

“ _I found love where it wasn’t supposed to be,”_

..

The girls are loud out on main deck, but they are both used to such noise. The crow club was no haven.

Her captain’s cabin is always a stowaway for her. A peace. Where she is alone. Kaz is in here with her, but her comfort endures. The log walls are warm, peeling in the far right corner. Her bed is made. Her shackles are unlocked.

He is nervous. He has been that way all night.

..

She stands over a map at her desk, explaining her next route to him.

Inej glances up. Their brown eyes meet, coffee on caramel in the lantern light. He hesitates, eyes scanning her face.

She does the same, noticing a faint bruise on his chin, and how his lashes are clumpy from the rain.

He exhales. She inhales. Yet, neither are breathing.

Then, within a second and no longer, he kisses her. It’s quick, harsh, and gone.

It’s then, she realizes how ragged he appears. Sweat sticks between his brows and he chews both lips between his teeth. Is this even worth it? She hates that look on his face, a child looking at a math problem far too complicated.

For that brief half second though, she felt something, something off, a thing that—for all the lips and the firsts that were stolen from her—it made her tingle warm in the midst of her fear.

She _enjoyed_ it.

He kisses like a thief. There and gone, leaving no trace.

Inej doesn’t know what she is thinking. Reaching for the knob on the kerosene lamp she lowers its brightness.

The hum of the night becomes a whisper. It is intimidating.

“I’m going to bed,” she says. They need to change into their sleep clothes.

This is so hard, so she just goes for it. Inej loosens his red tie, pulling it over his head. She starts on the buttons of his shirt. His fingers drift over her clothes, delicate and committed.

He loosens the string on her pants and they fall. His breath stutters with hers as she undoes the bottom button.

It’s a stutter of discomfort.

Kaz shrugs it off his shoulders. It joins her paints, black and white on spruce floor.

He glances to her dresser, and she turns to get a shirt while he unbuttons his dress pants behind her.

Her steps are hesitant, aware that her legs are bare.

His shirt is atop the pile, and she rags out a heave, glancing over her shoulder. Kaz has back to her, black fabric hugging him.

She lifts her shirt over her head, and unclasps her bra, curling in on herself. His shirt slips over her head. It’s rough, and heavy, and safe.

This is Kaz.

Shirt too big, she gaits back over to him, pulling the coil from her hair.

“You’re beautifully ugly.”

She lifts a brow, swallowing her laugh. They lay down next to each other, face to face. The glow of the lantern surrounds them, and their shirts match. They say nothing, and she kisses him. Slow and sweet.

He is a statue beneath her lips.

Kaz rolls onto his back to get away. His breathing is so broken. Cold fills where he was. Inej sits up, and he looks at her, sorry.

He holds out his hand, white, bare, and scarred.

“Tell me when it’s too much,” she whispers. Her fingers clutch his.

Inej sets a knee by his hip, swinging her other over his lap. That’s all. She is above him, tense, and he is beneath her, faint.

Their skin doesn’t touch. Her palms are either side of his head. Her bare legs touch his boxers.

Kaz’s hands rise to her hips, over the shirt.

“Tell me when it’s too much,” he repeats.

It’s too _little_. Kaz is at her will, and she is bending to his.

The dark of the lantern, and the muss of his hair. Her own dark locks trickle over her shoulders and tickle his collar.

She nods.

Lowering her head, and her hips, Inej settles on him, and he tenses. Then, he breathes. He is alive. He is alive.

Her lips start between his brows, flocking the wrinkle and the tiny hairs. His eyes squeeze so tight, suffocating his soul behind the lids.

She pulls away.

“I’m fine,” he rasps, pushing up to his elbows.

She knows, but it seems he figures it out. “Are you?” Her head barely shakes. He sees it.

She can’t escape herself when kissing him.

It’s like that man. Inej is present, here, listening. She can’t be the Lynx, and she can’t go numb. It’s overwhelming, and terrifying.

He snags her left wrist, pulling her inner forearm to his lips. Kaz kisses her feather, scarred and _there_.

She is alive. She is here.

She wants to be here.

“Kaz Brekker,” she says, “tell me when it’s too much.”

She lifts his wrist to her lips.

Then, she trails up his arm. “Breathe, Kaz.” He does. It falls out of him.

She kisses his ‘R’. The tattoo is dark and poignant. “Rietveld.”

The _jurda_ farmer? She pulls back. His breathing is so broken, a sputtering engine.

“My name is Kaz Rietveld.”

Oh. There are questions she doesn’t ask, not today, or any day until he gives it.

“I’m Inej Ghafa.”

She leans down, and he tilts up. They are still janky and hurting, but: they kiss, for a second. He pulls back.

“Nice to meet you,” he says. She rolls off him with a huff of laughter. They face each other. They both breathe. The shackles are tight, (but they were never shackles). There is an inch between, and it may as well be nothing.

She can’t escape herself, and she doesn’t want to.

(He can’t escape her either.)

..

_“Right in front of me.”_

_. ._

_._

_._

_to be continued._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D good day


	3. K, Q, J

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brick by brick, they built a wall between them.

October 5, 2020

..

What started out as difficult, moulds into habit.

When she is in Ketterdam, and they are together, they carve into each other. Be it: standing over her shoulder, tugging her hair, or the grabbing of sleeves.

He still can’t handle skin on skin.

It’s hard: because, he sees her, and she is gorgeous, lean, and pointy from elbows to waist. Kaz dreams of having her, holding, kissing, and touching every part of her, as much as she allows.

When he wakes up, he vomits.

..

_For Jordie._

It’s a mantra, at this point. Why is he here? Doing this? _For Jordie. For Jordie._

He wipes down the table, dealing the next hand.

He does jobs, and punishes people who can’t pay their dues. Today even, he held a man’s tongue between his gloved thumb and finger, threatening to cut it out if he ever spread such secrets again. _For Jordie._

_Is this it for you, Kaz?_

Inej asked him that. He saw a girl today, dark skin, dark hair, dark eyes, and he thought of her.

What exactly is he after? This is for Jordie, he knows, but what? Pekka Rollins has been cut off at the knees. His gang, in shambles. He is a monster, but he's tired of doing any monstrous thing.

Jesper is at Wylan’s. Nina is an ocean away. Matthias is dead. Inej, he sees her once a month, if he’s lucky.

What is he after?

..

The night is crisp, and the click of his cane is refreshing.

The path to the Van Eck estate is a rusty cobble. Kaz knocks. Wylan opens the door about two minutes after. His hair is blond strawberries and his cheeks are flustered; he adjusts his collar. Kaz holds in the smirk.

He is aware of what the boys were up to.

“Kaz- I…”

The image conjures, like a mockery of his insecurities, his incapabilities. He almost pukes at the idea of that much skin on skin. Of the kissing, and touching.

“Where’s Jesper?” Kaz is very personable.

Jesper waltzes around the corner, as smug and smooth as he always is. Not even bothering to button up his shirt, he gives the merchling a kiss on the cheek: undoing all of Wylan’s hard work to hide their activities.

Kaz’s fingers choke the crow of his cane.

Jesper joins him on the porch. Wylan closes the door, leaving the softest _click_. Flies buzz around the lamp above the door. Jesper pockets his hands in his pants, leaning forward. He towers over Kaz with his Zemeni height, tapping his foot on the porch.

“You want lil’ ole me to do a job?”

It’s a reconnaissance: watch through a scope, and report back. “Everyone else is occupied.” Jesper eyes dull a bit, disappointed. Kaz adds, as though it will help, “It’s clean.”

Jesper sighs.

“I’m good, no longer scrounging those debts.” Right. Yes. The flies buzz, and the light flickers. He was only checking because the job needs to get done, and there is no one else to do it.

“Nothing wrong with extra kruge,” he says with a grin, turning away.

He hears the door open, and a blast of warmth hits his shoulder blades, clawing down his body, and even further through his bad leg. It aches. The merchling and the gambler. The one who gave himself, and the one who hid himself.

Lovely.

The walk home has three clicks: two feet, one cane. Ketterdam streets are cold.

..

Inej visits Jesper and Wylan quite often, he notices.

‘ _The Wraith’_ is in the port three times a month, but she visits him maybe once. It’s not his business where she goes, but this is his city.

His city is his business.

(Maybe one night, when her ship is in it’s eternal reservation, he waits for her and she doesn’t show. Maybe, just maybe, this one night, he stares hard at his window as he sits on his bed, like the harder he stares, determined whether she came.)

Kaz knows where she is, where they are.

So, he lights the candle at his desk, and he sets to work, carefully dipping the ink and scrawling a slimy signature: the same stroke of hand, the same pressure.

Dirtyhands doesn’t make mistakes.

..

Four people around a table.

There are supposed to be six, Inej is so sure. A blond wolf and a crooked crow. The heads of the table are vacant, but only one has the possibility of being filled.

It is lonely.

Nina even attended Wylan’s little idea, jumping on Inej’s ship to be here.

The boys are across the table, leaning over a deck of cards. “Don’t overthink it,” Jesper says soothingly, rubbing Wylan's wrist.

He can truly be kind.

Wylan stares down at the _K, Q,_ and _J_ , terrified. Traumatized. See, it’s only three symbols, but when someone is told their entire life they are nothing, they believe it.

Inej only dealt with such words for three years, and it broke her.

Nina succumbs first, slamming her hands on the table. “Where is _he_?”

Wylan cringes and Jesper shrugs. They all look at Inej, and the knowing weight of their gaze spikes her anger. Their stares don’t hold long.

“I… didn’t exactly _send_ him an invite,” Wylan says. Inej’s heart drops. Nina’s fury disappears.

Jesper’s brows shoot up. “ _Wylan!”_

“What!” He rubs his neck self-consciously.

There are so many things unsaid, and like cards in Wylan’s eyes, the words are a jumble in Inej’s ears.

Wylan mumbles, “What if I sent one, and he didn’t come?”

“Then we beat the kruge out of his slimy pockets, obviously.” Nina crosses her arms, hmphing.

 _What if he doesn’t want us?_ It’s the unsaid words. The sit in the deck of cards, and she is afraid to pick up a card, afraid of what it will say.

 _K, Q, J._ They rattle in her head like marbles in a shaky jar.

..

Four people, six chairs: it’s like that for months.

Inej loves seeing them, but hates that Kaz isn’t there, and maybe she should bring it up with him, but they rarely talk at this point.

She sails the sea, giving freedom. He gives out the orders and the shackles.

“One of these days,” she says from the window sill, “I’m coming for Ketterdam. For you.”

“I’ll be waiting.” He signs a paper, rubbing his brows.

Not to love or to fix him, she will come to end him. She knows. He knows. Inej stands, sliding her way to the front of his desk. Silence is who she is, but somehow, Kaz knows when she wants his attention; he lifts his gaze.

“Is this it for you?”

Hand dipped in ink, he frowns. Sighing, Kaz leans back in his chair, tie loose on his neck.

“Inej,” he says softly, flexing his hand toward her. Reaching out, she presses the tips of her fingers on his knuckles, unflinching. “Do you see the scars?” She nods, staring at boil-like scars, pale on his already ghostly skin. “Ask Jesper how you get them, next time you all go for cards.”

Her mouth drops: _of course he knew._

He probably knew from day one. He definitely knew.Kaz pulls away, and she can nearly see the barrier fall over him. She is no longer welcome.

“Wylan was going to send you an invitation.”

Kaz shrugs, casually removing his tie. “Do I seem to care?”

“Very much.”

His eyes harden. “And I thought you knew me better.”

 _I know your name. Who you’ve lost and loved. What you fear._ To some, those three aspects are all that define a man.

“He was scared,” she says, leading her hand to the pot, where the familiar whittled crow resides, “that you would not’ve come, and he was right to be afraid.”

Wylan’s fears were just. Kaz doesn’t do caring, from him, or directed toward him.

(He knows her name, too. Who she’s lost and loved. What she fears. And yet, they’ve never been further away from one another.)

Brick by brick, they tore this wall down.

Then, she seemed to realize he was everything she wanted to crush. Kaz never stole people, nor would he swindle, but he broke them, paid them to be broken.

Brick by brick, they build this wall up.

..

 _I want you,_ he had said once.

Now, Kaz doesn’t know what he wants.

Holding her was hell, and it was everything he wanted. She was above him, and she kissed him.

And he pushed her away.

She fell asleep next to him. The dreams kept him up though, (they still keep him up.)

How she felt beneath him, small and firm, challenging. The night was beautiful: all kissing and touching. He told her his name; his armour sat by the bed. He thought he was fine, over it, through those heavy waters, but Jordie, or his father, or Pekka—or Kaz himself—chained an anchor to his foot.

He watched her sleep, just an inch away, and all of it bubbled to the surface.

The anchor was tossed in, and he was pulled to the bottom, and so: Kaz left her there, stumbling to the club. The sky was grey. He’d forgotten his shoes.

Without his shoes, and without a cane, Ketterdam streets were so much more chilling.

(He knew when she landed on his fire escape, more felt it than heard it. Kaz hadn’t been sleeping.

A pile of his clothes, his shoes, and a crow-headed can were on his fire escape in the morning. Guilt—outside of Jordie—was not someone Kaz was familiar with. How could it be, with all he had done?

When he picked up the cane, guilt introduced itself.)

He was gone in the morning, and it seemed to have irrevocably shattered them. They made so much progress, that night. He invited her in, and slammed the door in her face.

(The bricks grow heavier.)

..

“Oh, it’s cowpox.”

The answer is so very simple. The marks on his hands are nearly identical to Kaz’s, pale circles of scar tissue like acne on the back of his palms.

“You’re staring like I said Queen’s Lady,” Jesper jokes, stacking his cards on the table. They shuffle. “‘Nej, you all right?”

“How do you get them?” She leans forward, hearing Nina laugh at her as the Grisha takes a bite of her waffles.

Wylan glances at Jesper’s brown hands, saying, “milking cows.”

Nina raises a brow, swallowing, and the game goes on.

What business? What business does Kaz have milking cow?. Inej taps her foot silently, and it takes her a lost round of Kaiser, and a few minutes of denial to figure it out. Her eyes fly wide.

 _Rietveld_. Johannus Rietveld, the farmer.

Kaz Rietveld was not born in Ketterdam, but she thinks Kaz Brekker was.

..

The door is tempting.

He hears them, in there, laughing. Fear is a funny thing. (He turns around.)

..

Kaz Rietveld was a farmer.

The ride back to Fjerda for Nina is a long one, because Inej’s mind is in one spot.

“Talk to me,” Nina says next to her in the night. The ocean sways them. The stars are dark and tired like them, and none can sleep.

“It’s nothing.”

Nina is a smart, beautiful girl. She reads the world well, and reads Inej even better.

“The waves remind me of him,” Nina whispers, folding her arms around herself. “It’s why I can’t sleep. I just want to jump in, and freeze my boobs off, just to imagine how he held me,” her eyes water, “kept me warm.”

Inej rests her head on Nina’s shoulder.

“I hated him for so long.” Nina is numb. “I hate the boy who shot him so much more.”

The boy who shot Matthias Helvar was Fjerdan, and he was blond, tall, his eyes were blue. He spat at Nina like she was a sin, and a stain.

That boy looked so eerily familiar.

..

The sheet of paper on his desk is an average thing.

It’s an invite, to monthly games of cards. Poker, Blackjack, Kaiser, ever so scratchily written by Jesper.

He is nearing nineteen, and five months after they started their little get togethers, he is invited. It would be so easy, crumpling the paper into a ball, and tossing it into the trash. But Inej will be there. And Nina. And Wylan. And Jesper. Regardless of who he pretends to be, he wants to see them. _He was afraid you wouldn’t show._

Kaz is afraid too.

. .

.

.

_to be continued_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I literally have no clue where this wants to go. Send help.
> 
> (Literally, prompts ideas, suggestions on where you want this to go.)

**Author's Note:**

> i love SoC


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